


Pacific Rim: Iron and Blood

by infinitemachine



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Fights, Gen, Kaiju, Original Characters - Freeform, Unofficial Sequel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-13 00:17:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5687248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinitemachine/pseuds/infinitemachine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twenty-five years after Operation Pitfall, the Kaiju have returned. Ada Gottleib, daughter of Hermann and Vanessa, joins the battle as a Jaeger pilot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Riftway

**The Sea of Mamara, One Mile Outside Istanbul  
July 10, 2050**

They plunged into the riftway and it filled the external view of their HUD with pure white. The AI, quickly compensating, filtered the brightness away until the rainbow of bubbling, writhing colors resolved into view. Ada Gottleib felt the familiar wrench of weightlessness in her stomach.

“One minute, thirty-two seconds to exit the riftway,” Tendo Choi’s voice rang in her ear. The riftway was still open on the Shatterdome side, allowing last-minute instructions and details through to them. Normally those sorts of declarations would have been left to the Chief LOCCENT Officer, but Marshal Choi was known to fall back into some of his older habits now and again. “We’re dropping you a mile outside of Istanbul, in the Sea of Mamara. As soon as you’re clear you’re to proceed south to intercept the incoming kaiju.”

“Have we got any details on it yet, Marshal?” asked Mercedes, Ada’s conn-pod partner. Mercedes Cordiero. The Mercedes Cordiero.

Shut up, Gottleib. It’s not like your family doesn’t have its share of celebrities, came Cordiera’s thoughts across the drift. 

“Codename: Rampallion,” Choi was saying. “Category 3, 300ft, 3500 tons. Squat and heavy, ladies. And damned ugly. One minute, ten seconds to exit.”

“All systems nominal, LOCCENT,” Ada reported.

“Preparing to close the hatch,” came the voice of the actual chief officer.

“Roger, LOCCENT,” chimed in Mercedes.

“And 3…2…1. Close the hatch. See you in a sixty seconds, Centurion.”

Somewhere in the riftway behind them, the Shatterdome entrance was closing. The last minute of their transition through the riftway would proceed cut off from all earth-side signals. It was standard procedure: only one side of the riftway was to be open at any time. That had been a bad lesson the PTDC had learned the hard way. Without an exit point open, the communications line was dead, not even receiving any static.

For Ada the silence was unnerving, even creepy. They were, technically speaking, outside the physical universe, in the same in-between space that the throat of the Kaiju breaches inhabited. True, they weren’t traversing between two worlds like the kaiju did; instead, they were short-cutting to another point on Earth, skipping the intervening distance between Hong Kong and Turkey. In this last minute before the exit, though, they were more than an infinite distance from home.

At the same time she felt her nerves being assuaged by Mercedes’ invading calmness. Mercedes had closed her eyes and was in a state of near-meditation. It soothed Ada’s tension slightly; the two connpod partners balancing out each others’ emotions.

Focus, Gottleib. We have a job to do, Mercedes’ thoughts came floating through Ada’s consciousness.

Right. Sorry, Ada thought back.

“Five seconds to exit,” she said out loud. “And….now!”

The exit opened directly in front of them, the familiar light of the sun breaking through the rainbow of the riftway. Centurion Spirit fell through the opening, emerging from the portal 40ft above the sea. It plunged into the water – “Brace for landing,” called out Mercedes– and hit the bottom, the conn pod rocking with the impact, readouts flashing from the corners of Ada’s display. They stood the jaeger on its feet, up to its waist in sea water.

“Welcome back, Centurion,” Marshal Choi’s voice came through the comm link.

“No place like home,” breathed Ada.

“The militia is trying to hold off Rampallion roughly 3 kilometers due south from your current position,” said Choi, referring to the remotely-controlled fighter drones that were basically single-weapon, single-purpose Kaiju aggravators. “You are cleared to engage, rangers.”

“Yes sir, Marshal. Centurion Spirit moving to beat the shit out of it.”

The jaeger waded through the water, trailing a wake of swirling brine. A Mark-12, 200ft tall and 1800 tons, it was shorter than most jaegers of its weight class, which gave it a solid, stocky build. Its right hand held a long spear.

To the south they could see a flurry of small shapes in the air swarming around a much larger, darker shape halfway immersed in the water……./


	2. Scenes from the Drift: Ada Gottleib and Mercedes Cordiero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scattered images from the lives of Ada Gottleib and Mercedes Cordiero.

**Scenes from the drift:  
** Ada Hedwig Gottleib (R-AGOT-117.12-C)  
Mercedes Neves Cordiero (R-MCORD_835.21-H) 

_Britain, 2028. Ada was three years old, watching the 2028 Amsterdam Summer Olympics at her parents’ London home. The Amsterdam games were the first to be held after Operation Pitfall and the end of the Kaiju War, regarded as the most joyful Olympics in history, as the world came together to celebrate the victory of the human spirit. Ada was too young to understand the context, but she was completely caught up by the emotion. She watched every second of the games her parents allowed: the opening ceremony, gymnastics, swimming, track and field, men’s boxing, women’s boxing…_

_Amsterdam, 2028. Mercedes was twenty-three when she won her gold medal in Women’s Boxing. She would never forget the sound of the bell, the shouts of the crowd, her opponent circling -- the impact as the first punch connected and the adrenaline rush that immediately followed. Her succession of rivals: their eyes, their movements, their mistakes that she would inevitably exploit. The ceremony afterwards; the weight of the gold medal as it was hung around her neck. She mouthed the words as Hino Nacional Brasileiro played, raising her hands to the cheers of the bleachers as she walked with her coach from the stadium. She would never forget the pride in her mother’s voice afterwards._

_Germany, 2040. Ada was fifteen when the kaiju returned. In Frankfurt, with her mother and father, the three of them in the living room, transfixed at the incoming images of the Rio de Janiero destruction. Her father, now 61 years old, visibly shaken for the first time in her memory. Rummaging through his pockets, he found his commonplace book and set to scribbling, muttering to himself. Ada’s mother, Vanessa, brought him the phone when the call from Uncle Newt finally came. “Thank you my love,” he said to her, and then, into the receiver, “Yes, are you watching! Have you seen it!...yes of course, hello to you too Dr. Geizler. Fine, yes, ‘Newt’. As you will. Now! Are you watching! --The short bursts of seismic--yes, of course it’s not in the Pacific, we’ve been watching too closely--naturally, without the geothermal energy, the pressure--” he was still scribbling while talking, the phone crooked between his cheek and shoulder. There was a knock on the door. Vanessa answered, with Ada close behind her. Two men and woman stood on the porch, in uniforms familiar from the old photographs in father’s study. “Vanessa,” said the woman, with a hint of a Japanese accent. “It has been far too long -- I wish the circumstances of our visit were different. If you’ve seen the news, however, I believe you’re expecting us. We need to see your husband.”_

_TAM Airlines Flight 8343, 2040. Mercedes was on her way home from the 2040 Paralympics in Perth, where she had won the gold in the javelin throw. The medal represented a far greater effort, a far greater personal challenge than her first Olympic win, and she was therefore all the more proud of it. Even the events which followed would not diminish that fact. It was a long flight from Perth, with only a single stop in South Africa. She spent most of it alternating between sleeping off the exhaustion of the week gone by, and joking and celebrating with the other athletes.They were only miles from the Brazilian coast when the pilot’s voice came over the intercom, announcing that the plane had been diverted due to a massive earthquake in Rio de Janiero. His voice was flat and stoic, not unlike her doctor's voice several years prior. The plane would land in Recife instead of San Paolo, he said. The mood of the plane turned instantly alert and sober. Mercedes’ thoughts flashed to her sister, Isabel, who had lived in Rio for nearly seven years now. She closed her eyes tightly. “Please, god,” she whispered. “Surely by now you have put my family through enough sorrow. Please. Let my sister be safe. Let all of them be safe.” The intercom crackled again, the pilot’s voice returning, the pilot’s voice no longer stoic but thick with emotion as he gave them the correction: it had not been an earthquake......_


End file.
